


Shake Down the Stars

by mywholecry



Category: Swing Kids (1993)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywholecry/pseuds/mywholecry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter listens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shake Down the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2007, when tiny fangirl me rented this movie every time her family went to the video store. She had just discovered the joy of homoerotic subtext and was nursing an uncomfortable crush on Robert Sean Leonard.
> 
> Good times.

Peter listens as Arvid plays his guitar like Django Reinhart and Thomas sings like no one else, belting it out as he swings his way from girl to girl, and, when they stumble out into the night air, it tastes like _young_ and _rebellious_ and _free._ They jitter jive all the way down the rain-slicked street to the tune of the faded music, tangling limbs and scarves, matching footsteps beat for beat. At his stoop (always the first, somehow, no matter where they come from), Arvid moves on, pulling his hat down further over his face with a smile and limping less than usual, his guitar case seeming lighter on his shoulders. Thomas follows him up, though, until they reach his door and, suddenly, a sharp chin on his shoulder and a sharper whistle (no, _no, it don't mean a thing_ ) right in his ear, and he is gone.

He listens to the dulled sound of wet shoes until they disappear entirely, leaving nothing but that ache of a musical echo at the opening of the stairwell, halfway to his ears. Lately, he hasn't liked for anything to be quiet.

It's just as he expected when he gets inside. Everything is cast a shade darker with that time just past twilight, and he can only just make out the sound of breathing, from further distances. They have stopped waiting up for him, like he used to beg them to do, before all of this started to mean something. He passes his mother's room (the door opened just a crack so she'll wake if something happens; they say it vague like that, _something_ , like they don't know exactly what they're afraid of) without looking in, straight to his own. His brother is curled up, asleep, with nothing but a crown of almost-white hair showing from a bundle of sheets, so wrapped up that he can't even tell if he's breathing.

He listens for a few seconds and can't stop himself from checking afterwards, shaking the boy gently before accepting his stirring and the high whimper, kid whimper. Was he ever that small? It seems impossible, almost unfair. His hands are shaking as he hangs up his coat and his scarf on the headboard and lays down in his clothes. A lot of nights, he doesn't sleep. It's easy to see that this'll be one of them, that everything he's done tonight is still buzzing underneath his skin.

The sun eventually pushes away the night time with saving fingers, inching over the window sill and spilling onto the floor, and soon he'll be going to school and soon he'll be dancing again and maybe that will end the war, if nothing else will.


End file.
